skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Have you ever heard of 'variance'?" The "common case" makes sense when you are dealing with a discrete variable that has a mode (a single highly common value): it does not make as much sense for a continuous one like hand span.

Put simply, the issue is that no one actually has the "common case": the probability that someone's hand span exactly matches the "average" or "mean" of the distribution is approximately 0.

Instead, we have to first discretize the variable into a histogram and then assign a common case afterwards. The way you normally might do that is with standard deviations. However, now you have to ask "what is the variance".

With hand size, it is quite obviously very large: again, my girlfriend's hand is to an iPhone 4 as my hand is to a Galaxy Note, and people generally do not go around calling either of us freaks of nature with regards to our hands (I actually have fairly effeminate hands ;P).

I will therefore repeat with emphasis: the idea that people make these reachability arguments as if hand size is universal down to silly half-inch increments is downright insane. However, I will now show some data.

http://www.steinbuhler.com/assets/images/HandSizeChartNewWeb...

This chart comes from a piano company measuring hand span for purposes of optimal piano sizing (concentrating on people whose hands have already finished growing). (Their conclusion, btw, was that they needed to sell a few more piano sizes.)

Now, this is full hand span; however, as your hand is fixed in the middle by the thing you are holding, you won't get this full spread, but I would easily argue that you will get at least half of this spread in that case.

The result, as you can see, is that there is a very very large range of reasonable values: hands are really not that common; you might think you have a common hand, but you really don't: hand span varies by numerous inches.

(There are multiple factors for this, of course: it isn't just hand size; you also have to take into account flexibility of joints, muscle strength, etc.; even if everyone's hands were the same size, the ability to reach the upper-corner of a device would vary a lot.)

I will then argue that even if you want to just attack a lot of people, and still fail for numerous others, you need to at least be making a device for women and a device for men: the difference between genders is really striking in that chart.

However, most people don't argue things like this: they accept that there are massive variations in the size of peoples' feet, hands, torsos, and pretty much every other body part, and this is why we don't just sell one-size-fits-all clothing.

Apple, FWIW, would not only be selling a single size of jeans, they would claim that they had optimized the size of the jeans to fit some optimal size, and their user community would then defend them with diagrams that show variances of less than half an inch for how perfect the fit is.
Loved Slashdot from the very beginning (read Chips n' Dips on occasion before Slashdot). My second ID was 100612, and my first was four digits. I'd been posting anonymously before that.

When reddit came along, I was splitting my time about equally for six months or so. And then, I realized a few months after that that I hadn't logged into Slashdot in months, and hadn't really noticed. I came back to Slashdot a couple of times to answer questions about something I was involved in (like Y Combinator), and found that it still led to a huge spike to my company/Open Source project website...slashdot is, or was, a firehose of very focused traffic that may never be replicated (at least, not for really nerdy folks). reddit never sent that kind of traffic our way, and neither has HN, or any other single source.

Anyway, it must be hard to let go of something awesome. But, it's also hard to watch something awesome die while you try to save it. Slashdot may not be "dying" per se (any more than any of us are dying, at a slow but steady clip), but I'm pretty sure it's in a steady decline that will never be turned around, and that's tough to watch.
Love the name, laughed my ass off ;)

Disclaimer: I'm immature...
Securitized debt for high-risk high-return R&D?
Took me until I saw the Disqus comments at the bottom to realize this blog was not on svbtle.com. The theme is here:

http://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle

From the github readme:

> Isn't this unoriginal?

> Yes, in the same way svbtle is unoriginal. See the original "inspiration" for svbtle. (link: http://drawar.com/)

At that, I raise an eyebrow. Yes, dcurtis' svbtle does look like it may have been inspired by drawar, or any other blog theme with a persistent left-hand column. It's certainly not nearly as original as it is simply well-executed.

But wp-svbtle copied the style & spacing of svbtle down to just about the pixel-level. Legal or not, it's pretty blatantly ripping-off the brand dcurtis is trying to establish, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I agree, but instead of just calling this ux I'd call it engineering. Pandora has some amazing engineers. I know one of them, Casey, because he lives here in Colorado. He's one of the smartest engineers I've met.

Rdio's great, but in addition to the issue you mentioned, they had an issue with Backbone.js and a Chrome Dev Channel bug, where rather than making some Backbone.js source changes to work around the Chrome bug, they simply waited it out. I doubt Pandora would have taken that approach.

I think Microsoft would make Rdio more technically sound. They might screw up the business, but Skype seems to be doing alright and Yammer keeps plugging along, so I'm optimistic.
Hidden ascii art in page source of BarackObama.com
Lessons I've learned from Dreamforce this year
Oh.. OOOHH. I get it :)))))
API Driven Development (slides)
Mixing two videos using GPUImage on iOS
How does this compare to existing text formats that generate multiple outputs, in particular pandoc (which supports an extended version of Markdown)?
As an undergraduate student studying Computer Science, I completely agree with this post. One of the main reasons that I chose CS is that programming/design knowledge has immense value in the world today, and it is one of the few areas in which a person can create something incredibly valuable with little to no barrier to entry.

I especially enjoyed this quote: "With a laptop, an internet connection, and 50$ you can bootstrap even the most abitious technical projects by yourself."
The section on typography is actually about formatting. Also, an epigraph is not the same as a quotation:

[...]
2. (Literature) A citation from some author, or a sentence
framed for the purpose, placed at the beginning of a work
or of its separate divisions; a motto. Epigraphic
Presumably you're cis and have never or seldom crossdressed. So, your thoughtful contribution here appears to be you being cis scum, and it is also irrelevant.
Powerful interviews w/ Founder of WikiHow & Founder of Apptopia
5% + requiring you meet a minimum + time limit
Sure, in a perfect world the patent application for software would consist of submitting all the lines of your source code. It would be granted automatically as long as it was not a copy itself. The source code would not have to be disclosed to the public. Anyone found copying your source code or compiler output verbatim would be prima facie infringing but all others would be free to compete with your "invention" via their own development effort.
IPhone5 buzzes in China: Looong
I wouldn't say my post was supposed to be a rant, but a critique of their approach to social media marketing instead. Seems to me that it would be relatively easy to add social sharing buttons and it would pretty much instantly increase their viral reach and subsequently grow their subscriptions.
When is this going to be ready for use? Will I be able to export all my shoeboxify photos to my own digital archive?
Check out the demo. It definitely contains javac http://int3.github.com/doppio/
It's funny how they did it using the letters USA
What if Web Users Could Sell Their Own Data?
Jonathan Kay is the Founder & COO of Apptopia (https://www.apptopia.com/), the online marketplace for buying & selling mobile app ownership. Jack Herrick is the Founder & CEO of WikiHow, the 165th most visited site in the world.
I'll spoil it for anyone who hasn't figured it out. It's in the page source. In the beginning of the page, after the Doctype string and the lines for older versions of Internet Explorer, there is an ASCII art image of the Obama "O" logo.

Edit: And it's done with the letters u, s, a, and just a few kinds of punctuation marks. (Thanks to stephanerangaya.)

Further edit: No obvious easter eggs in the source of the Mitt Romney campaign page. I am disappoint.
Not sure if this is applicable to a company as large and established as Apple, but I'm reminded of this quote:

"If you’re not embarrassed when you ship your first version you waited too long."
In what jurisdictions can a not guilty verdict be appealed? Am I understanding correctly that the fact that nullification occurred would be grounds for an appeal in those jurisdictions?

My thought here is that in jurisdictions where jury nullification is normally possible and effective, it is only really effective if they give a not guilty verdict. A guilty verdict, given "just because" (or whatever), could be overturned in those jurisdictions, possibly even immediately by the judge.
I was fooled too until I saw the horribly-positioned Disqus section. (Seriously, all it needs is a "padding" rule.)

I may not be much of a Svbtle fan, but I'm also not a fan of ripping-off a brand's design just because you can.
This is a fucked up world view. The underlying assumption seems to be that every human has the exact same metabolism, hence if you're lean and fit you have willpower, self-discipline, and self-control, and if you're fat you don't because you've 'let yourself go'.

But by that measure everyone who isn't an Olympic athlete lacks a certain level of willpower, self-discipline, and self-control as well, since that's the only differential between Olympians and non-olympians.

Bodies are different, metabolisms are different, and each person has a natural equilibrium state. For some people that equilibrium state is lean and skinny, and it takes relatively little willpower or 'ambition' to maintain it. In fact, some can't even get overweight if they try.

For others, their equilibrium state is to be overweight, and it takes a relatively herculean, constant, unending effort to reach and maintain the former's same level of leanness.

Food also affects different people in different ways. It's no secret Americans have gotten fatter in recent decades, and one of the main culprits is our increasingly poor diet. But even there, some people are more resistant to gaining weight from poor quality food and/or overeating while others have to stick to a strict diet, count every calorie, and work their ass off in the gym just to look like the former does without even trying.

We seem to be getting better at hacking our metabolism lately, judging by what I've read of Paleo/Primal, stuff on Lifehacker, etc. I wonder if anyone has ever applied to YC by answering the application question "what was your best hack?" by saying they were naturally obese and hacked their body/metabolism to overcome it. It's not easy.
For me it's twitter is where I find people I don't know, and facebook is where I find people I do know.

Twitter is useful for me as an aggregator for gathering twitter posts by people I'm interested in. All of my family members who do use twitter also have the FB<-->Twitter thing hooked up so I'm not missing anything from them by ignoring twitter.

Personally, I find very little value in twitter. Maybe it's because I'm in the wrong demographic or my social circle doesn't use it, I don't know. I could imagine a world where we posted everything through twitter, but in reality almost nobody I know personally actually uses twitter.
Depends on the investors. People tend to "like" people who are similar to them. Successful people tend to be type-A personalities, which in turn indicates that they are more likely to make the effort to be fit. Successful people are more likely to have money to invest and so the cycle goes on.

I know several fat, happy, friendly, successful people. I think their success comes from their good attitude, warm personality and the value they bring to the negotiating table.

Obesity is also a health issue and investors will see that as a risk to their investment.
I read through this this morning and was like, "Wow, so many people are not going to go through the hassle of mailing the notice".

Stay classy PayPal. :-/
At least they're trying. If Facebook sharing is such a legal clusterfuck pushing more services through the gate at once won't help. I'm sure that if they can get their foot in the door, they'll do everything that the OP described.
Yeah, that example just stuck with me since I've been trying to dig up all the tracks related to the Demigodz/Def Jux beef, which is all pretty hilarious. Especially 10 years later. I came across the rapgenius page trying to find "we're famous" on youtube (like I said, Good SEO!), and was just struck at how completely off the mark the commentary was on it.
If the tex2html tool is poor, why not improve that tool? Re-inventing TeX seems like quite a waste of time.

Every time someone invents a new markup format for absolutely no reason, I die a little bit inside.
Wow, congratulations to Lockitron!!

I stayed with the founders 2 years ago in Palo Alto after Startup School. I remember they opened the door remotely for me when I arrived and there was nobody home, it was amazing.

I had lost track of them until now, I'm really glad to see all the interest and support they are getting.
Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a totally rational person when it comes to making nuanced decisions for which there is no objective right or wrong answer. It's simply impossible to set aside one's unconscious biases entirely. To an extent, one can work around unconscious biases by being as data-driven as possible, but for something like deciding whether to fund a startup, the decision is (at least in early rounds) largely based on a subjective read of the founders, rather than any metrics.

Note that I'm not defending any kind of biased treatment of overweight people -- I'm just commenting on the present reality of the matter.
Pull requests accepted :)
What you're talking about is essentially the copyright system (plus or minus).
Actual NFC keys (as implemented on NFC phones) don't work like this -- they are much more secure (think of an exchange of freshly calculated encrypted information rather than broadcasting an unchanging code) and can't be copied.
This uses an existing format, restructuredtext, not a new markup format.
First, this would mean the product is immediately perceived as outdated in comparison to its cousins. And for a smaller screen, why use anything less than retina? Not likely to happen.

Second, the more consistency across the various products, the more efficient the manufacturing and supply chain are -- keep it simple logistics.

Third, with volume purchasing of homogenous parts comes decreases in COGs and increases in profit margin across all product lines.
Woah good catch, didn't even notice that in the first glance!
You can get passes to NYU Bobst library. It is right next to Washington Square Park. Great views, great area, hundreds of iMacs to use if you you want to use more than a laptop.
And my mind somehow interpreted it as "ASUS". Weird.
Warp drive looks more promising than ever in recent NASA studies
Hence the emergence of such legislation as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003

Of which the efficacy is certainly arguable, since a truly reputable firm might seek to provide such a mechanism in an easy-to-use manner. Whereas a shady operation would, and do, ignore the directive anyhow.
They could have come down from an external source.
I agree with you (although your comment sounds almost ranting) but you kinda have to mention them in any conversation about using data to understand football... even if it's not used properly.
Could you use this to put an obfuscated message in a stereo recording... only audible when in this half-plugged-in difference-mode?
love this story!!
After USC & UCLA Successes, Flinja Brings “Airbnb For Univ Jobs” To Stanford
Given for example the geocoding API, which is js based and requires no API key, I don't see how they would know who to charge.
You are right! But consider that many thin people make a huge effort to be that way and with that comes resentment that they are foregoing all the nice things (chocolate, beer, snacks, etc) I hate group dining where one person is a diet & exercise Nazi - really spoils the atmosphere. Pass the chocolate mousse and cognac!
Frank said: FIRE ZE MISSLES
V3Solar: 20x more power output/area than flat PV
Really nice tutorials, the background music is nice too, the pace is pretty fast as well which is something you don't usually see on tutorials, however this is way better than a slow presentation which makes it unbearable to watch after a point. Never used d3.js before, however i really enjoyed the tutorials. I ended up watching 3-4 of them and got interested on the library.

The only negative comment i guess i can make (as a suggestion) is that on some videos the music is a bit high which ends up overlapping with your voice.
It's hard to specify our exact workspace, because it's the intersection of the two camera frustums. Here's an approximate estimate: 2 feet wide x 1.75 feet deep x 1.25 feet high.
I really wish I could take part in all this keyboard fun. Unfortunately, there's a 20 degree upward curve in the middle of my right forearm (due to an old injury). This limits my options to the Kinesis Freestyle [1] and maybe the Goldtouch. The Freestyle is okay, but I miss the switches of more substantial keyboards.

Can anyone recommend a more hacker-friendly split-in-two keyboard along the lines of those discussed in the article?

[1] http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/freestyle.htm
Thank you Nico, it was great to host you. Airbnb'ing with Lockitron was incredibly straightforward.
Interesting concept, but the idea seems to be just a spin-off of the "fill out surveys for money!" business model. Especially the way in which users earn "perks" rather than cash payouts.
I still think Amazon is doing the right thing.
a) THey put out a note and then contacted the publisher eventually after a day. Given their scale, I would assume it would be necessary to validate the customer complaints before handing off to the publishers.
b) Again, they are just being extra careful about copyrights to the book contents.
c) Do it right and give the best reading experience the first time, otherwise customer are right to complain. I kind of don't like the publish quickly, update frequently model that the author is trying to do. It breaks the book reading experience.
How about more doctors as well? - more supply to lower prices. I'd be fine with doctors who are educated in more crowded Medical Schools... for the most part, I can diagnose myself.
Is this the real reason for the law suit against 3Taps and PadMapper?
Steps To A Checkout That Converts
Web Layouts for Mobile App Landing Pages
Tips for Mobile Site Success
6 useful mobile tips that aren't just the usual obvious rehashes.
Indeed, the wordpress theme's author is not operating in the way he alludes to in that quote. Svbtle is actually inspired by the design of Drawar; it is easy to see the root ideas, but it's also plain to see the changes and evolution of Svbtle that make it distinct from Drawar.

Contrast this with the WP theme and an actual Svtle blog:

Svbtle: http://dcurt.is/

Svbtle WP: http://www.lylemckeany.com/

If you alt-tab between the two, most of the page is exactly the same. The Svbtle-WP theme is not "inspired" by Svbtle, it is a direct copy.
This is exactly why I stopped paying for (and eventually using) Rdio. Their mobile app (where I used Rdio 80% of the time) was HORRIBLE at keeping the music playing non-stop, without tons of pauses and dropouts.

Pandora, on the other hand, is nearly flawless in the same signal areas.
I'm not completely sold on the comment section even being on my blog at this point. Comments don't always create the valuable and lively discussion that I would like. I'll try out your padding rule idea later though. Thanks for the feedback.

As far as the wp-svbtle theme goes, I like it for the simplicity. I won't deny that it's a complete rip-off of Dustin's Svbtle. I pointed it out to him on Twitter once and he only favorited my tweet. Maybe he will try to do something about it at a later time, who knows.
I'd add the varying availability of tracks as a major problem. Having some things simply not available is an annoyance, but I can live with that. What's worse is finding some albums I like, adding them to my collection, and then having them disappear later without warning. Almost just as bad is when that happens and they replace it with another copy of the same album, it doesn't get added to your collection.
Not that I don't believe the fine folks at Lockitron, just a question about this Kickstarter-on-your-own-site thing that seems to be catching on. Since this isn't audited by an independent company (like Kickstarter) how do you blindly believe what the company says? Doing so would be a smart way to build more buzz, resulting in more success.

PS: The blog is down, so I'm not sure if they presented any visual evidence, such as an Amazon screenshot. But that's easily doctored too.
Big labels aren't even filters? They're creators. Without them we'll have no popular music. Where were Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Ke$ha, Justin Bieber, .fun, Taylor Swift all before a major took them on? Nowhere. Flopsville. They create mass market products. Without them nobody will have the budget or knowledge to do it. And that'll be a sad day.
Agree 100%! Disclaimer: co-editor/co-chair for the Open Annotation W3C Community Group
Wanted: Ruby Gem Core Team
Yep. I believe it's the only reasonable approach to IP protection for software.
Apparently Netflix has implemented this feature outside the US.

Also, it appears the law currently prevents Netflix from integrating the Facebook button as it requires "informed written consent of the consumer given at the time the disclosure is sought."

The bill would change this to "informed, written consent (including through an electronic means using the Internet) in a form distinct and separate from any form setting forth other legal or financial obligations of the consumer given at one or both of the following times; (i) the time the disclosure is sought; and (ii) in advance for a set period of time or until consent is withdrawn by such consumer."

I think people ought to be able to make these choices for themselves. I realize some people will forget to disable the feature, enable it inadvertently, not understand it, etc. But how is this fundamentally different from Spotify or Last.fm integration?
Off-topic, but I just discovered that Safari does not have a "view source" command. It's like Apple is trying to lose my respect. :-/
Best Global Brands of 2012
YouTube Improving Content ID System and Appeal Process
IANAL, but it looks like in the US it really depends on state, but often the waiver only protects against negligence, not gross negligence.

In the UK, on the other hand, I don't think they're enforceable at all.
Great tutorials! Btw, I find a thumbnail view easier to follow: http://vimeo.com/search/sort:alphabetical/format:detail?q=%2...